


Cats and Birds

by NoNameWriter



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Hybrids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-04-17 17:55:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4675964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoNameWriter/pseuds/NoNameWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Across the world, people are turning into animals. Or, you know, PART animals. </p><p>They're calling it De-Evolution, and it's scary as hell to be honest. No one actually wants to be an animal, to sprout ears or a tail or start chewing on bones, but there doesn't seem to be a way to avoid it. It was spreading like the world's most effective virus, and the US was only so long away from getting hit. Austin in particular. Rooster Teeth, specifically. </p><p>They were trying to find the humor in it like always, trying to carry on as normal, but it was pretty damn difficult. How do once friends work together now that they were predator and prey? How do you deal with wanting hay instead of coffee in the morning? How the hell do you wear a beanie with cat ears!?</p><p>And how do you deal with the fact that bird-hybrids were known to have low survival rates, and then Gavin had to go about and start sprouting wings?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On the Horizon

“Shit.”

“You’re telling me.”

Burnie ran a hand over his face in stress, looking up to meet his old friends’ uncharacteristically serious expressions. It was earlier than they were all usually here, but the news that’d hit last night had Matt calling them all in first thing in the morning. The office was quiet, save for Monty (who they didn’t think had gone home last night) and Gavin (who Geoff dragged in seeing as he was his ride) and a couple of interns setting things up for everyone else to show up and start recording and editing in about an hour. The atmosphere was too quiet to really feel the stress the city was feeling right now, but it was there. It was all over the news after all, even if it hadn’t really reached America in full force yet.

“You think it’ll go global?” Geoff shifted in his seat.

“They don’t know what’s caused it, much less how to fight it. Nothing they’re doing is containing it, and even if they figure it out, it’s already covering some 500 square miles. And the first case was only reported a week ago.” Matt said grimly.

“And realistically, we’re in a big city with a big airport, not to mention we’re just a short trip from Dallas, which is even bigger and one of the biggest business ports in the country. You remember what happened with the Ebola scare, if it _does_ come to the US it’s gonna hit there and the other big cities first. And considering how fast it spreads, in such close quarters…”Burnie pinched the bridge of his nose, scrolling through the more and more panicking inducing news stories on his laptop.

“But this _isn’t_ Ebola.” Joel chimed in with a furrowed frown. “It’s… weird, but it’s not like we’re all gonna _die._ You make it sound as if this is the zombie apocalypse or something!”

“People _are_ dying, Joel.” Geoff shot out. “Did you not hear about the whale hybrids? They’d reaching fifteen feet and their hearts are giving out! Not to mention a lot of the reptile hybrids are going comatose or getting all messed up from the cold-blooded thing!”

The dark haired man wilted a little, just crossing his arms over his chest rather than answering.

“But he _is_ right in that it’s _not_ the end of the world,” Matt made peace between them with a stern look spared at each of them. “It _is_ scary though; the uncertainty is enough to scare the shit out of world leaders and the rest of the world. And we as a company have a lot of visibility in the community and I thought maybe we could use that to show others how _not_ to panic.” His expression softened slightly. “And, you know… this company is like a family in a lot of ways. I don’t want anyone being _afraid_ to come to work, I want this place to be the place they run to in order to feel safe, you know?”

“Like if or when we all start sprouting ears and tails, make a no-bullying rule or something?” Burnie snorted half-heartedly. “No, I know what you mean. Just don’t think we’re not going to give each other a hard time.”

“I know that,” Matt rolled his eyed. “But we never _mean_ it like that. We just give everyone crap because we can, and honestly I don’t want that to change.”

“It’s not going to.” Gus dismissed. “We’ll have a meeting, we’ll say it like it is. RT is now a zoo, whoopdie fucking do.”

That earned a few half smiles. “Well, not just yet. But the chances are getting too high to ignore.” Matt allowed. He turned to the man to his left. “I know you’ve been looking into this stuff all night, what do we know right now? We’ve got to say something in this meeting of ours.”

Burnie sighed, flicking through the latest BBC reports that just updated. “They’re calling it De-Evolution: humans are spontaneously getting physical and characteristic traits of animals farther up in the evolutionary chain. Apparently the way evolution theory says it, we all used to be microbes that turned into fish, then amphibians. Then it got really complex, meaning that some lines evolved forward, some evolved then evolved back, some died out, blah, blah, blah. The way its presenting with this De-Evolution process, is that the main line generally goes from amphibians, to birds, to reptiles, to mammals—like humans. Most of everyone affected by this is taking on other mammal traits like dogs and cats and rabbits and shit. Like Geoff pointed out… some mammal traits aren’t compatible with humans. Whale hybrids get too big for their hearts, giraffe hybrids are suffocating because they can’t breathe through their necks, mole hybrids going blind, so on and so on. Those are the big ones, but even then it’s not a death sentence so to speak, now that they’re figuring out what to look for and how to try and combat the problems. Everyone else seems fine, despite the weirdness and chaos.

It gets weirder when people De-Evolve past mammals and broach reptile territory. The cold-blooded thing is fucking them up pretty badly, and since this thing is started in Africa… well, they don’t have the infrastructure or the wide-spread ability to accommodate everyone over there. As of this morning they’re reporting three thousand cases-”

“ _Three thousand?!_ It was five hundred last night!” Joel burst out.

Burnie just shrugged a bit helplessly. “Well, it’s moving fast.”

“Exponentially fast.” Gus blinked, also surprised by the number.

“The likelihood of being a reptile hybrid is only about 6-8% though.” Burnie pushed forward. “They’re saying early symptoms are things like flash fevers and, obviously, fluctuating body temperatures depending on the room temp. Thankfully those symptoms are some of the earliest, so if they can get to help quickly they’ve got a good chance.” He shifted in his seat as he looked up his next fact on his laptop. “The real problems are with the bird hybrids. They’re a step farther back up the evolutionary chain and humans just aren’t meant to have wings it seems. There have been two hundred reported cases of people turning into birds. Only seven are still alive.”

“What’s happening to them? They’re just wings, right?” Gus sat forward, concerned/interested.

“They’re not very forthcoming with the details about how this change is happening, but it seems it’s happening too fast for anyone to keep up with in some cases. Human bodies typically don’t have the energy to grow new limbs in such short time, but for some reason we do now. These wings people are growing though, have to be massive if they’re gonna get a fully grown person off the ground, and people just can’t handle it I think. They’ve been really vague about it, but I don’t think this process is all that pretty.”

“I can’t imagine it would be.” Gus allowed. “So… what are we going to say? Keep to a buddy system and if someone near you starts changing species call for help?” He tossed out, half joking and half not.

“I think not brushing off any kind of discomfort is a safe place to start.” Matt clarified, jerking his head to gesture to the office outside his office. “For example, Monty will work despite having every kind of sickness known to man, so we need the people around him to make sure he takes breaks and to reassure that he’s not ignoring more grievous symptoms. And then there’s people like Gavin, who thinks he can _will_ sickness away.”

All of them rolled their eyes at that. “I’ll keep an eye on him.” Geoff chuckled under his breath. “I’ll keep an eye on all of Achievement Hunter, actually.”

“That’s all we need really, is just for people to look out for one another.” Matt said with a hopeful smile. “If everyone just sticks by each other and we can do some short RT Life videos to show the world that, yeah it’s strange but it’s also ok, I think this will all be over quick.”

“Over, sure, but everything’s gonna be a hell of a lot different once we get there.” Burnie reminded them, clicking his laptop shut.

Matt shrugged to allow that, and the nodded to him once more. “Are there any symptoms in particular we need to watch out for if someone is going to turn into a bird hybrid? Anything helpful with that?”

Burnie lost his brief humor and got grim again. “Ah, unfortunately no. From what I gathered, those transformations come on _fast_ and then it just happens or… you know, it doesn’t.”

There was a beat of uncomfortable silence.

Gus broke it, gathering his stuff and standing up. “We just need to keep an eye on everyone. That’s all we _can_ do right now, so it’ll have to be enough. But in the mean time, we have deadlines so business is continuing on and if anyone calls out sick because they’re _afraid_ then I’m sending the Lads Action News to go interview the sanity out of them until they get their asses back to work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plz don't hate me, I've had this story sitting around forever and I really like it, but it has Monty in it. 
> 
> I just don't have the heart to take him out now, so try not to feel those feels, just enjoy it!


	2. California

Matt drummed his fingers across his desk, feeling more nervous than he had since this whole mess started. It was like he’d finally reached his limit in how much stress he could take, and now all that was left was to sit here and press his fingertips into his desktop and pray for the seconds to tick faster, and for his phone to start ringing.

It’d been thirty three days since the first case of this De-Evolution had appeared, and almost all of Africa had fallen to it. It was something like 94% population saturation, but they expected it to be 100% by the week’s end.

It had spread through Asia like wildfire by the end of the second week, and it’d started up in Europe, although they a slightly better job at containing it. That was probably mainly because no one wanted to leave their houses, but life _had_ to continue, so by the end of the third week the cases were fast approaching thousands instead of hundreds, and in a couple more days it was millions.

And then on day twenty four, a woman in New York had sprouted antlers, along with a dozen cases being reported in Brazil. Manhattan was a war-zone of chaos as millions of people changed almost simultaneously as a result of being so packed in with so many other people. Unfortunately a lot of people had died in the chaos—not as many as it could’ve been thankfully, but still enough to cause a stir. New England was a mess as it spread quickly around there.

But now, almost overnight, it’d hit the west coast. The news was saying it’d finally made its way across all of Asia and jumped the ocean, probably flying into LAX and taking down a lot of south California in the past forty eight hours.

Which was where Burnie was, right now.

Matt could not ever remember being this worried about his old friend, and now he swore he’d _never_ make fun of the man for being overly concerned with all his employees. Oh how’d they’d ragged on him for breaking down Geoff’s door at three in the morning to get the shot-gun shells he’d left there that evening so Mille wouldn’t get them—as if Mille would be up at that hour and be stupid enough to do that, considering that girl was probably smarter than all of them, for sure. It was just Burnie’s nature, to be concerned with those around him and those that he cared about, to wonder if they’re ok and to go out of his way to ensure they stayed that way.

These weeks of impending De-Evolution had added more than a few gray hairs to Burnie’s head as he nearly forgot about his work and simply roamed the office to make sure everyone was remaining calm and ok. Kerry had had a small little freak-out early on and Burnie had spent almost two hours talking him out of it, the same as Burnie pacing by Gavin’s side as they wore ruts in the halls, since the epidemic had hit the London less than a week from the start of everything and Gavin was just waiting with a nervous stomach for news from his siblings or his parents. Geoff had gone off the deep end and wouldn’t let Millie leave the house for a couple days, but Burnie talked him down from that too. Ray, surprisingly, had started shouting randomly—not about the De-Evolution really, but it wasn’t exactly subtle that his uncharacteristically short temperament was from the unspoken stress seeping into the corners of all their lives.

Kara had gone silent and only spoke when spoken too for a while, several of the interns had tried to quit and flee for the hills rather than pretend everything was business as usual, and Blaine had spent more hours than was probably healthy on the treadmill at the back of the studio when he should’ve been working, just to ‘get his mind off stuff’ as he said (until he nearly passed out from exhaustion, that is). Everyone had little quirks in how they dealt with everything, from short tempers to undue silences, to flat out panics.

Burnie talked them all into playing it cool.

But now, the man who’d been keeping all their heads on straight for the past month was in LA for business. Matt and Geoff had hesitated in letting him go, but Gus had told them they were idiots and that life _had_ to move on and _no_ they weren’t about to miss this sponsor meeting because they were afraid of **fur**. Burnie hadn’t said much on the topic, but he’d seemed as ready and willing to go as ever, despite the deep breaths Matt caught him doing as he got out of the car when they drove him to the airport.

It was essentially the worse-case scenario they’d all been picturing when he left. He was in the middle of a big outbreak, in a big, heavily populated city—the fact was, he was almost definitely infected now. And he was supposed to have had a flight in about four hours to come back to Austin, to come back to _Rooster Teeth._

Hell, he had a podcast to shoot tomorrow night. That was at the very least an hour and a half in a closed room with three other people, not to mention those who came to watch in the studio and those in the control room. And telling Burnie to _not talk to people_ that he cared about was like trying to tell the earth to spin the other way, so one way or another…

Finally, his phone rang out a familiar tone, and he had to his ear immediately.

“You _are_ coming back.” He said sternly.

“ _Matt…”_

“No, shut up. Everyone saw the news this morning, they all know you’re right in the middle of it, and no one wants you to stay away because of it.”

“ _You legitimately asked them that?”_ Burnie exclaimed lightly, sounding amused.

Matt rolled his eyes. “Only because I knew that was going to be the first thing you’d ask.” He confirmed. “But listen Burns, you’re gonna get back here one way or another or Gus will actually murder you for missing the podcast after you said you’d do it.”

Now he really laughed. “ _Well it isn’t gonna be by plane, I’ll tell you that. Everything’s shut down tight. But I can rent a car and drive back in twenty hours or so.”_

Matt felt his stomach twinge a bit. “The last thing we need is for you to pass out on some empty highway in the middle of nowhere, Burns.”

“ _I think I’ve got a couple days left, actually. From what I’m seeing around here, it’s not quite as fast as the news would let you believe; it happens in waves and the city is on a down period at the moment. Plus, people seem to show symptoms for a full day before anything more drastic happens, so I’ll have enough notice if anything happens. But, to be safe, I’m heading to the rental place right now and headed out as soon as I fill the tank.”_

He resigned himself to this plan, trusting his old friend’s judgment and secretly hoping he’d make it here in time so that he could keep an eye on _him_ for once. “You _will_ be calling me periodically to let me know you’re not in a ditch somewhere, but other than that, sounds good. And hey… you’ve seen this thing happen?”

“ _… yeah. I have.”_

“And?”

_“Well… it’s scary, to be blunt. But, you know… it’s actually kinda cool too. I figure, once all the panic calms down, this will actually be pretty neat. I’m just_ **_waiting_ ** _for the first shampoo commercial for hybrid canine hair versus hybrid rodent hair. Or like, a make-up commercial for reptile hybrids or something.”_

“A whole new line of piercings for those with cat ears versus those with dog ears.” Matt chimed in, and Burnie gave a bark of amusement.

“ _Yeah, exactly! It’s a whole new world, and yeah it’s fucking terrifying, but it’s also pretty cool. I mean, I just walked by a girl with what I think is a lemur tail and no one’s overly concerned by this. Do you think we’ll have to bring this into the RvB world? And if we do, then Caboose is getting a baboon’s butt, I’m calling it now.”_

“God damn it Burnie, one thing at a time. Get your ass back here and bring it up on the podcast, I’m sure the fans will love it.” Matt smiled to himself.

At least one of them wasn’t freaking out.


	3. Talk About It

Burnie made it back without much of a problem, and he announced on the podcast soon after about the situation he was in, and the threat he posed to the rest of the office. Thankfully, no one panicked. Gus figured it was because of how the man had been the one calming everyone else down for the past couple weeks, which meant no one was interested in abandoning _him_ now, even with the imminent change now closer than ever.

As predicted, the fans loved the idea of Caboose getting a bright red caboose of his own, and they’d spent the rest of show broaching the subject they’d been awkwardly avoiding out of mild fear for the past month. They talked about celebrities and what sort of hybrids they thought they’d be, or who surprised them and how half-filmed movies would be ended now that all the actors had physically changed. And on that topic they talked about how movie plot-lines might shift, and how casting might be more difficult now since no one was really sure how each type of animal fit in with others.

Then of course came the great philosophical debate over whether or not Luke Skywalker would’ve been a wolf or a chipmunk.

Twitter came to their aid as they wondered and questioned about their oncoming futures, as a lot of their fans had already changed. They learned that, not only did the new hybrids get some new physical traits, but a lot of personality traits as well. More so than the news had originally presented it.

The podcast went _way_ over their time limit, but even Gus couldn’t complain, considering the educational/therapeutic content they were making. However despite going so late, they still felt like they didn’t have all their answers when they called it a night, the studio mustering up some seriously nervous laughs when Burnie signed off by telling the camera that next time they saw him, he hoped he had some rad horns to poke Gus with.

It sort of felt like everyone was just barely keeping it cool, but they managed.

Until Burnie walked into Matt’s office the next day around two in the afternoon, and simply shook his head. He looked pale as hell and he leaned against the door frame weakly as Matt immediately stood and walked over to get a better look at him.

“I’m going home.” He said tiredly, and Matt didn’t even argue.

“You look like shit, I’d have sent you home if you hadn’t said it first.” He sighed. “How do you feel?”

“Like the aforementioned shit.” He groaned, putting a hand to his head. “Feels like my skull’s gonna split open any second now, and I’m really trying to make it home before I lose my guts, but jury’s out on that one.” He huffed, pulling himself upright and turning out the door while Matt just backed politely away and let him go. He made sure Ashley was waiting for him by the front door to drive him home instead of trying to make the journey himself in his state, before he returned to work—first passing by Geoff and Gus’s desk to shoot them a silent look, alerting them that the shoe they’d been waiting on had finally dropped.

 


	4. Cat Nap

Michael slammed his controller onto his desk, half regretting it because he knew he’d end up breaking it eventually, but also not about to give a shit with the way his head was threatening to explode. At first he thought it was because he was wearing his glasses and had been staring at a computer screen for the past four hours nonstop, since that often gave him headaches. But after a lunch break that had him bristling uncomfortably at every loud sound their rowdy group made (especially Gavin, and his stupid high pitched laugh) and in which he’d only picked a little at his meal, he’d returned to his desk feeling notably worse than he’d left in.

He grimaced a little as Gavin spun on his chair distractedly as he thought over whatever problem he’d encountered in editing, the sound of metal on metal and plastic wheels on the rough carpet for some reason driving him up the wall. He wasn’t fucking known for his patience, so the little sounds that he’d never noticed before and honestly never gave much thought to—Jack moving his head and his beard brushing against his shirt, Geoff’s occasional cough to clear his throat or the way his chair creaked as he leaned every which way while playing his games, the front door outside their office practically screeching open and wind coming rushing in—had only steadily been grating on his nerves until he truly felt every ounce of his “rage quit” persona.

And it wasn’t fucking Thursday. There was no need for all this fucking _rage_ , but his skin felt like it was too tight, like he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs. His ears were starting to just _ache_ something horrible as every little sound in the room collided into his poor ear drums like someone had cranked up the volume on life, and it made his head pound dully. And as his frustration mounted, he couldn’t stop clenching his hands like it was some sort of angry habit, although he’d never done it before. Something about right now just made his fingers feel… weird.

“Michael what are you doing?” Gavin was of course the first to notice his anger wasn’t normal. Then again, it was pretty obvious when the red head jerked out of his blurred daze of irritation to realize he’d been dragging his nails against his desk hard enough to make ten soft grey lines where the enamel cover was giving into his fingers. He had small shavings poking him under his nails, but for some reason it felt sort of pleasant, like relief from scratching a horrible itch.

“Uh,” He didn’t really know how to answer, but he dropped his hands from his desk immediately, wondering just what the hell was happening to him. “Nothing.” He said, but he didn’t really think he was convinced of that.

Gavin didn’t seem to be either as he tilted his head curiously at his friend. “You look pretty riled for editing. What happened, did something get erased?” He questioned playfully, like he did when he knew the red head needed a break in order to not break his keyboard instead. Michael was usually thankful for this unintended tendency the Brit had adopted over their years working side by side, but today it made his insides squirm uncomfortably—although, they’d been doing that all day, so maybe it wasn’t entirely just being asked a question he didn’t have the answer to.

“No, ah, it’s actually fine. It’ll be a funny one when it’s done, I think. Better than last week’s for sure.” He tried to converse normally to get his mind off the itching and aching and— _what was that?!_

His eyes snapped to something behind Gavin’s head, on the wall directly to the left of the Brit’s face, and it consumed his entire attention. It was so bright, like a star. Michael felt air leave his lungs, and his nails dug into the arm rests of his chair sharply, the muscles in his back and legs coiling in tension.

“-l? Michael!?” He snapped out of it and blinked rapidly at Gavin’s suddenly much closer face, his expression something like perplexed, but also a bit worried. Michael looked at him, and then at the source of his distraction. He turned his head, and realized it was a disk Ray was holding as he opened his Xbox to change out his game, the reflection from the light casting a sparkly little dot of color and luminosity on the wall.

He let out a shaky breath, his vision swimming a little from the spinning of his head as his body relaxed. He felt kind of like he’d just come down from a runner’s high—sort of good, but also sort of spent. Not to mention _heavily_ confused. Like, since when was a sparkly dot so interesting, much less _that_ interesting?

And yet… it had _all_ of his attention for that one second in time. He felt disoriented, like his world had revolved around one thing for only a moment in time, and then a rug had been ripped out from under his feet and the world had returned to normal like a smack in the face.

“…woah.” He blinked. This was all just… weird.

“Michael? You ok buddy, you sound a bit spaced out.” Geoff had obviously noticed something off with one of his lads, and had turned his attention and his chair away from his work to roll slightly closer to the red head.

Michael made a small sound at the back of his throat, not quite able to make words. He realized he was still pretty damn tense, including his death-grip on his chair, but he had to forcibly concentrate on making his hands release it to try to act normal. He blinked rapidly when he saw the black fabric that used to be undamaged now littered in ten little rips.

His nails weren’t _that_ sharp, were they?

Now Geoff was out of his chair and right up on him, putting a hand on his forehead immediately in with a stressed look in his eyes. “Do you feel ok? Headache, other weird things? Damn, you have a fever.”

Now the entire office had gone from half-paying attention to _really focused_ on the situation going on with their resident short-tempered red head. Gavin’s eyes had gone round as saucers, his mouth popping open in surprise as he made the connection as to what Geoff thought was happening.

And they didn’t really doubt that Geoff wasn’t going to jump to conclusions about things like this—they’d all seen how seriously he’d taken it when he’d explained Matt and theirs’ plans about watching out for everyone at Rooster Teeth. None of them had missed the way their boss’s eyes had been sharper than they thought they’d ever seen them be for the past couple weeks, hovering close to them and watching his team carefully for any signs of the oncoming change they all knew was going to happen at this point.

And it seemed his vigilance had finally paid off, as Michael’s own eyes went wide in alarm at what was happening.

A part of him felt relieved there was a reason for all the strange things he had no explanation for, like the headache and the itching—and the annoying prickling sensation in his _teeth_ of all places, that he only just realized was bothering him. It felt sort of good to know these incredibly strange sensations had a cause, even if he didn’t know exactly _what_ sort of change was causing all this. It seemed to cure his frustration some, at least making it so he was just distressed and not so angry.

On the other hand, he was terrified.

He didn’t want to be an animal, he really didn’t. He just didn’t fucking want to sprout ears or a tail or any other shit, he just wanted to be _Michael_ —the _human_ version of himself, thankyouverymuch. He simply just didn’t want this to happen, much less having him be the _second fucking person_ _in all of fucking Austin_ for this shit to happen to. Burnie had only gone home the day before yesterday for fuck’s sake and hadn’t called in to report what sort of state he was in, only texted to reassure them he wasn’t dead, so they didn’t even know what had happened to him much less what was going to happen to Michael as ofnow…

He swallowed hard, his teeth grinding together in stress.

“Boi, breathe, it’ll be fine.” Gavin was surprisingly comforting for the asshole he usually was as he wrapped a hand around Michael’s wrist and (with some effort) pulled his renewed death grip on his arm rests free. The poor fabric was ribbons now, and everyone zeroed right in on the strange behavior curiously.

“What is with that? You never destroy stuff, that’s Gavin’s MO.” Ray teased, and his light-hearted taunting brought Michael’s panic down a little.

“Dunno,” He muttered, flexing his hands and wondering why they ached like they did. His nails itched again, like all he wanted was to sink them into something again. “Hands feel weird. They keep ripping stuff without my permission.” He pouted a little, and Geoff hummed interestedly.

“What else is wrong?” He demanded, like a doctor trying to figure out his patient. Or a worried parent, more like.

“I’ve got a headache.” Michael admitted with a small grimace, his voice subdued in a resigned kind of way. “It’s like everything’s too loud; it hurts my brain and it’s _killing_ my ears. Plus, for some reason my teeth hurt, like they’re just growing in.”

They seemed to consider that, and it wasn’t a big leap to figure out what they were all thinking about. It was one thing to hear about this happening to people across the world or even the country, but what sort of animals would the people they knew turn into? Their parents, their coworkers, their friends?

Their children, in Geoff and Ryan’s case.

Ryan pulled open one of his drawers and dug around in it for a moment before finding what he’d been searching for and standing to approach Michael too. “How’s this?” He asked, placing a pair of heavy duty noise-canceling headphones over the red head’s ears.

Michael perked up a bit, placing his hands over them to press them more firmly down. “Better,” He admitted, sounding audibly relieved, and they watched some tension melt from his shoulders. “But why is everything so fucking _loud?”_ He complained with a twist to his lips.

“Couldn’t tell ya, buddy.” Geoff sighed, straightening up a bit, looking a tad haggard. “But I guess we’ll find out in a day or so.” He tried in an attempt at comfort, but by the dejectedly miserable look Michael shot at the floor after that, he figured it didn’t work. “Look, Matt said Burnie called him over lunch, but didn’t give much news beyond the fact he was alive and functioning again. I’m gonna go fill them in, just chill for a minute.” He backed towards the door, and Michael didn’t seem against this plan.

“Grab Lindsey while you’re out there.” He requested softly, and no one dared commented on that, although there was a beat of silence to take it in.

Michael was one of the stronger people in the world, emotionally at least. He took a lot of crap from both people he worked with and trolls on the internet who for some reason hated him, but he barely blinked. He constantly pushed himself to his limits physically for internet entertainment, and he hadn’t ever flinched. It really _said_ something, since something unknown and kind of terrifying was happening to him now, and all he wanted was his wife. It spoke of his strength, but also of the intensity of his fear they wouldn’t talk about, since the bravest one of them had gone quiet and was only searching for one of the people he trusted most in the world to be closer.

“Sure thing,” Geoff nodded once. He jerked his head at Gavin. “You’re finishing that edit though—Michael, chill out, Matt’s probably just gonna send you home.”

Both lads grumbled at that, earning smiles from everyone else. Michael stood abruptly and pressed the headphones over his ears with a bit more force, practically stomping over to collapse onto the white couch in the corner. No one stopped him, Geoff just took it as his cue to head out and the others pretended to get back to work, all the while keeping a close eye on the young man on the couch.

Michael could feel their eyes on him, but he just shut his own against them and the sharp florescent lights. A second later, the office went dim, so apparently someone had been paying really close attention to his discomfort. Normally that’d bother him, not being one to take being babied all that well, but for the moment he just felt a flush of relief—both from the absence of the lights that’s been picking at him for a while, but also because it meant there were people right there, and those people cared.

In a surge of petulance he hadn’t really felt since he was a kid, he didn’t want to leave them. He didn’t want to go home and… he didn’t really know what, but it probably wasn’t going to be pleasant and that idea on top of the uncertainty of it made him want to sink his nails into this couch and delay the inevitable for as long as freaking possible.

But, that was juvenile and stupid and he growled silently to himself for even seriously considering that behavior. He wasn’t a fucking brat, that was Gavin’s job.

He gave up completely and leaned against the armrest beside him, tucking his head down and trying to curl up as tightly as possible. For some reason the closed posture wasn’t constricting or uncomfortable, his limbs just filled with this languid feeling that had his muscles uncoiling their stress almost against his will. His curled posture held his body temperature in and he felt actually comfortable, despite the ache in his head and the residual soreness of his blissfully muffled ears.

Faster than he ever had before, he sunk into unconsciousness as he enjoyed the lazy warmth of the couch.

 


	5. Lasers

“…woah.”

“Dude. I’ve got fucking _horns.”_

“Yeah, we can see that.” Gus deadpanned. Burnie was not daunted by his negative behavior in the least, he just came into Matt’s office a little more instead of hovering awkwardly in the door as they gaped openly at him, grinning from ear to ear.

Geoff was looking, but having a hard go of believing. By Joel’s rapid blinking beside him, he figured he wasn’t the only one.

Burnie had a lot more… _hair_ , in a way. His curls were thicker and darker than before, his beard a bit more wild and curling up the sides of his face in a vaguely familiar shape. A shape that became instantly recognizable when coupled with the bison horns sticking out of his head. He was broader too, if Geoff wasn’t mistaken, like his shoulders had just gained a couple inches in width, and occasionally he’d let out this little huff through his nose that could’ve been a huff of annoyance, if his expression would flicker to anything but excited. It just seemed to be a new trait he shared with his… bovine side.

Joel moved forward first, tilting his head as he closely examined his old friend with a baffled look on his face.

“You have… cow ears.”

Burnie lifted an eyebrow at him. “Yes I do. Oh dude, check this out-!” He lifted those mentioned bison ears and they rotated a little, like he was listening to something behind him, and then they twisted around back to direct at Joel, who leaned _way_ back in alarm.

“And you hear out of them? What about your ears!? I mean, you’re human hears, your old ears!” He cried.

“They closed up,” Burnie shrugged, making the point by trying to stick a finger in his original ear and obviously getting stopped short of actually entering the old canals. “I was wondering about that myself too, so I surfed the news this morning and found that some of the original cases are still morphing, if only much slower now that the initial change is over. Horns are still growing, just at a more believable rate, and people who get new ears are slowly losing their old ones. I figure mine’ll fade eventually, which actually doesn’t bother me because these things are _way_ cooler.” He perked up, grabbing his new ears playfully and then shaking his head to get all his new hair to stand on end.

His friends stared for a moment, and then decided this was way too strange to take in all at once. Burnie’s oddly chill attitude about it did nothing to help with that either.

“As happy as I am it turned out ok for you, that was actually _not_ the reason I called you, and you would’ve known that if you hadn’t hung up on me.” Matt said, shooting the brand new bison hybrid a look that had Burnie shrugged unabashedly. He’d been excited, so sue him. “The _point_ is that we got our next victim of this thing and we’re just a bit concerned.”

“What, why? Who?” Burnie demanded, his humor flipped with his concern for his people immediately.

Geoff caught his attention with a nod. “It’s Michael. He was acting weird as shit and then I found out he had a fever. He admitted to feeling weird and having a killer headache, like everything was too loud.” He explained, and Burnie looked both wary and interested.

“I’m guessing the cause of the concern is that it’s Michael and he’s reacting loudly.” He tossed out there.

“The opposite actually,” Geoff said, his expression conveying his worry over this. “I think he’s actually scared, which says a lot coming from him.” They all nodded that point immediately. “He asked for Lindsay and she’s been sitting him with for hours now. I was only gone for like a minute to tell Matt what was up and I came back to find him curled up on the couch in our office out cold. We let him be for a bit, but he’s being a pain in the ass every time we tried to get him up and get his ass home.”

“Interesting.” Burnie admitted, thinking it over.

“I guess we’re just asking you since you seem to be the expert on this thus far. With all that damn research and now, being the only one to sprout a tail.” Gus said, slightly sarcastically, and Burnie put a hand up jokingly.

“Don’t even get me _started_ on the tail dude; _total_ fucking let down.”

 “ _You have a tail?”_

“Yes Joel, I’ve got a tail.” Burnie said calmly, obviously getting way too much enjoyment from the dark haired man’s expression. “Just didn’t have time to put a hole in these pants on my way here. Plus, I like these jeans; I think I’m gonna ask Ashley to do it cause I think I’ll just fuck it up.”

“The _point,”_ Geoff brought them back on topic, and Burnie nodded to him in acknowledgement.

“Right, well… I’m _not_ an expert, but I’m the best we got I guess, considering every doctor and vet in the world is losing their shit and out of their minds busy at the moment. I could talk to him I suppose.” He nodded, and Geoff headed for the door to lead the way immediately, already on edge from one of his lads being on the line here.

Matt nudged Burnie as they turned to follow, leaning his head back unnecessarily to dodge the horns as Burnie turned sharply to look at him. “Hey, is it… you know, as bad as everyone’s saying?”

“It sucks dicks.” Burnie said immediately, and totally seriously in his bluntness. “I honestly felt like I was gonna die. But I got better faster than I’ve ever gotten over something before, even considering how shitty I felt not even a couple hours ago. It seemed to build for _forever,_ and once it peeked it was honestly just plain and simple _hell_. And then… just like that it was completely over and I felt fine.” 

“Really?” Matt lifted his brow in surprise. “And you’re totally good now?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah. My neck has a crick in it now because my head’s so much heavier than it used to be, and the horns are still growing a bit, just slower than before, and that kind of aches, but it’s barely anything anymore. I could easily forget about it in doing other things.” He admitted. “I’ll be honest, Michael’s going to have a _horrible_ next forty eight hours, probably the worst of his life. But he’ll be 100% fine by the time it’s over, I’m positive.”

“It seems we’re all in store for that.” Gus chimed in as they reached the AH office. Geoff didn’t look very soothed from what he’d heard by listening in, and was as anxious as he’d been all day when he gently opened the door and led them in.

The scene would’ve been cute if they didn’t know that Michael had to be in some serious distress to put up with being seen publically like this. He was curled into a tight ball on the couch, his knees pressed against his chest and his arms pinned inside them, with his head resting against Lindsay’s lap as she carded gentle fingers through his hair soothingly. He looked like he was having the least-restful nap of his life, with the way his nose was twitching.

Achievement Hunter as a whole seemed to look relieved to see Burnie, before they all did a double take at his new additions. 

“Burnie!” Gavin squawked in surprise, and then immediately let out a peal of laughter. “You need to leave so I can yell ‘ _bye son!’”_

“Fuck you,” The older man didn’t even blink, though he spared him a highly amused roll of his eyes. “Like I’m not gonna hear that from now until the day I kick it. And I’m not leaving, cause I’m here to check up on our newest zoo addition.” He turned from the Brit and took a seat on the coffee table in front of the couch, poking at Michael’s shoulder. “Mikey, wake up.” He ordered playfully, but the red haired man made small hissing whine and swatted the touch away with his hand, refusing to open his eyes.

Burnie looked in surprise at Lindsay at the sound, and she just shrugged. “He’s been doing that for an hour now.” She explained.

“Did he say what was wrong with him before this?”

“His ears were sensitive, like everything was too loud.” Ryan offered. “That gave him a headache. Plus, look at the arm rests of his chair, he kept ripping them with his nails.” Burnie looked at the offending furniture, and felt his eyebrows arc high.

“Anything else?”

“Gavin noticed something was up with him first.” Geoff pointed out, and the Brit nodded, not looking overly concerned, more just curious.

“Yeah, he kept stiffening up and getting distracted by stuff. I was talking to him and he was looking right over my shoulder!”

“Well, what was over your shoulder?”

“I don’t bloody know, the wall?” Gavin shrugged unhelpfully. Burnie frowned, sitting back and thinking.

“Well… my first symptoms were strange stuff, like this weird urge to hit my head against a wall.” He admitted, and although several people (Gus and Joel, who were still standing by the door, in particular) snorting under their breaths, but he ignored them and pressed forward. “It makes sense _now_ , but it didn’t then. And like, I must’ve had twenty salads, and I didn’t even like salad until now, not to mention I think I stubbed my toe a hundred times kicking the ground, like a nervous habit or something.”

“Never realized how difficult the life of a cow is,” Ryan mused sardonically.

“Oh shut up, you perverted cow kidnapper.” Gavin shot right back at him with a grin.

“I’m a _bison_ you racist pricks, not a fucking cow!” Burnie cried. 

Ryan snorted. “Of course not, fucking cows have different horns.”

The entire office exploded in either boos or roaring laughter as Burnie flushed through his own chuckle. They quieted down quick though when Michael full-out whimpered and put his hands over the big headphones still pressed tight over his ears.

“Oops, too loud.” Lindsay whispered at them with a guilty smile, and then settled some.

“What I was _trying_ to say is that my, uh, _animal_ traits kicked up first before I got sicker. After that it was those traits to the extreme, like the pain from my horns growing in, discomfort from the fur, growing fucking _ears_ and a _tail_ and shit… I mean, it sucked but it was predictable, because no duh growing horns isn’t pleasant. I figure, if we can guess what Michael’s turning into we might be able to counter it some or at least make it a bit more comfortable, like those headphones.” Burnie explained.

“Ok, so… what animals have sensitive ears?” Jack prompted.

“Bats?” Joel tossed out there.

“Dogs?”

“Owls, moths, elephants, cats, horses, rats, pigeons,” Ryan listed off of the top of his head, and they all turned to look at him incredulously again.

“How the fuck do you know all that?” Geoff demanded, but the blonde just shrugged. The AH boss just shook his head to clear it. “Ok, that’s not gonna help us. What animals have claws then?”

“A _lot.”_ Ryan piped up unhelpfully.

“Cats do!” Lindsay chimed in eagerly, always willing to talk about her feline friends. Burnie thought that over for a second, and then trailed his gaze over where her fingers were still carding through her husband’s hair as he did his best to ignore them all talking about them.

“Lindsay, stop that for a moment.” He ordered gently nodding towards her hands, and although surprised, she did as she was told.

Michael stiffened immediately, his eyes cracking open to _glare_ at Burnie petulantly, not even blinking as he got to see the man’s horns for himself. The bison-man grinned. “That got your attention, didn’t it?” he teased, and Michael hissed venomously. And… it didn’t really sound like a human’s approximation either, the sound seemed to come from inside his chest, almost without effort.

 “Come on kid, don’t you want to go home and curl up in a nice warm bed and take a _nap?”_ Burnie coaxed him. His angry expression seemed to falter just for a moment as he seriously considered that idea and then snapped back into place.

“No.” He huffed, sinking to press himself lower into the couch, using Lindsay like a talisman against them.

“Yes you do you asshole, you’re just being difficult.” He shot back, and Michael made a strange warbling hissing sound as he clenched his eyes shut again. Burnie huffed in irritation, wondering how to approach this next.

And then, a small red dot appeared on the red head’s nose, causing everyone to freeze.

Michael’s eyes snapped _wide_ open, and he was in an upright position before any of them could blink. The red dot remained generally where it was, dropping to illuminate one single spot on the white couch between where the angry New Jersian’s hands were placed to prop himself up, his big brown eyes almost obscured by his pupils—which had dilated almost fully as he stared entranced at the speck.

As one, the office (except for Michael) turned to trace the angle of light back to where Gavin was sitting on his desk, a laser pointer in his hands and a wild grin on his face, like he could barely keep his laughter contained.

“By the talk of cats, I think I figured out what was behind my shoulder.” He giggled, and then titled the laser until the dot of light moved and rested on the couch arm rest on the other side of Lindsay, and everyone had to forcibly bite down their own laughs as Michael’s head swiveled easily to keep the light locked in his line of sight with the utmost intensity.

The sound of Burnie cutting off a loud laugh had Michael blinking out of his daze and forgetting the light long enough to cast him a curious glance. He then caught sight of everyone else trying not to laugh. It didn’t take long to figure out they were laughing at _him,_ though he had no idea why.

And then, he saw Gavin, and the stupid fucking laser pointer.

They saw it all fall into place for him, and ten emotions flashed across his face in a second. Confusion, shock, embarrassment, alarm, panic, and then, of course, _rage._

“I’M GOING TO FUCKING GUT YOU, YOU PRICK!”He exploded and was off the couch so fast there was no _way_ he didn’t have the start of some feline reflexes in him. Gavin realized he was target of this new, feral rage and bolted for the door. Joel only just managed to toss himself into the hall to avoid getting run over by the two, and then they were gone, everyone left in the office staring at each other in shocked amusement/concern.

Once the shock wore off, Geoff, Jack, Ryan, and Burnie were on their feet and after the two lads to make sure Michael didn’t _actually_ murder Gavin, since by the sound of loud crashing and continued screams of fury and shrieks of fear it was going to be a close one. That left everyone back in the office trying not to die of laughing too hard.

 


	6. Got it on Film

Michael’s burst of energy hadn’t lasted all that long. The pain in his ears and the soreness in his limbs quickly got the better of him, despite how good it had felt to release some pent up energy and frustration at this entire situation and sink finally his claws into something—mainly, into Gavin.

The Brit had complained loudly as Jack had helped him clean and bandage up the new cuts now littering his arms and back. They were mostly superficial and would heal in a day or two, save for ten little lines on his chest where Michael had finally tackled him and sunk his nails into his skin and _wouldn’t fucking let go._ It’d taken a lot of coaxing as he’d howled and hissed about how fucking unfair everything was, until he’d finally just collapsed and released his friend as his rage and adrenaline rush died down.

Geoff and Lindsay (who’d finally stopped laughing and put up a good show of being a concerned wife) had gotten them into a car and got them both home without much further incident while Gavin got patched up. Geoff had left the couple, only half sure Michael wouldn’t flip again when Lindsay immediately started cracking jokes and going to check to see if they had any salmon in the fridge. Still, the red headed boy had looked entirely wiped and was out cold on the couch almost as soon as they’d dropped him there without further complaining.

News of Michael’s “feline fury” had spread like wildfire, and the entire office knew by the time Geoff got back to work, since he’d left a lot of his things there in his rush to get Michael away from the general public as fast as possible. Ray—the sly bastard—had recorded the entire thing since Burnie’d walked in, originally intending just to get a picture of his horns but figuring to keep his camera rolling for the hell of it—although he’d missed some good chunks of the actual fight because of how fast Michael and Gavin had moved through the office—Gavin in an attempt to get away, and Michael in a furious attempt to shred him to pieces.

Upon learning this, Burnie had immediately given the footage to Miles to edit for RT life, although warned him to wait to post it until Michael had given his ok. He was fairly certain he’d say yes, considering this was _exactly_ what Matt had been going for in his attempt to show their fans and the public how they were dealing with their changes, but just in case. Michael hadn’t actually seemed all that right in his head with everything going on, so caution was probably wise.

Miles then recruited Kerry and a few others to help him edit these new prospective RT Life’s as fast as possible whenever they had them, so that they could post them within hours. He sent out notes and went around to warn people to keep their phones and cameras at the ready to film the shit that was about to go down, reminding them that this was exactly the sort of funny-mixed-with-madness the world needed in this confusing time.

After seeing the video they’d cut of Michael’s meltdown, everyone seemed to be in much better spirits and almost _eager_ for the changes to get under way instead of as afraid as they’d been—well, after they’d stopped laughing, that is. There was just something about it that was… ok. No one had freaked when Burnie’d walked in as a freakin’  _bison_ , and no one had ignored the fact Michael had been in distress— even going so far as to try and help him work it out and then make light of it in a _hilarious_ way. It was real, it was raw, it was flawed and not pretty, but it was ok.

And that was the kind of comfort everyone needed.

 


	7. Bones and Cheese

Michael was gone the entire next day, but called in the morning after that, saying he was alive but felt like shit. They emailed him the video, and after several choice curses and a lot of bitching about everything in general, he’d given the all clear to post it. It wasn’t as bad as violently tossing his lunch for comedy as he’d done several times in the past, nor any of the many other mortifying things that’d he’d done and therefore been caught on camera doing, so even the fact he was a fucking _cat_ of all things wasn’t quite as embarrassing as he thought maybe it should be.

He just wasn’t the kind of guy to be bothered by this, especially since he knew it was fucking terrifying at first and there were a lot of people out there who might really benefit from seeing the more humorous side of this pandemic.

The video had gone viral by the time they left work that day—along with four more people who started to feel like shit.

Video phones had been working overtime as Kerry had started squeaking every time he had an idea or someone surprised him, and they got some hilarious footage of his euphoric expression when Miles had slyly offered him some cheese before he got nauseous and had to spend the rest of the day hovering near the bathroom with a rather green complexion.

Jon Risinger had a habit of tossing a stress ball up and down in his hands when he was thinking, and the first anyone realized something was happening to Caleb was when Jon dropped the ball on accident and Caleb went sprawling out of his chair after it. That lead to an almost ten minute video of different office members tossing the ball around and laughing their asses off as Caleb chased it. At first he was a bit upset they were using him for their own amusement, but sucked it up like Michael had and actually found himself _really_ enjoying the game before he had to lie down and pass out in the corner from a pounding in his head and a plethora of strange smells his growing senses were being assaulted with, causing his stomach to flip with every breath he took.

Aaron had spontaneously started growling when Blaine was poking fun at him, and he went through the same “everything is too loud” process Michael had. It hadn’t seemed very funny until Burnie had cleverly offered him a steak for lunch and it’d disappeared in seconds, followed by an hour of him knawing on the bone distractedly while he continued to work at his computer. The distracted chewing combined with the bright-yellow headphones Ryan had relocated for those who needed it was a rather comical sight to begin with, not even mentioning his petulant, high-pitched whines when he caught them filming him again. Still, he’d no objections to posting that video, just complaining because he was in ever-growing pain more than anything.

The most concerning development had been Blaine, who’d cranked up the heat in his office on top of opening all the windows he could, claiming he was cold. It was Gus who’d dragged him out to check up on some sound equipment in the studio and noticed the tall blonde had instantly started shivering from the AC. They’d gotten a short video of Blaine lying out in the parking lot outside, soaking up the blistering heat of the Texas sun with pleasure before they’d had to poke and prod him to get into Burnie’s car, who was driving both him and Aaron to the hospital since Aaron’s gums had started to bleed with vigor right before the work day had ended.

That made five people out of commission, and only one fully changed. It also meant there were four new RT Life videos (Aaron and Kerry’s combined since it was mainly just a montage of jump scares and obnoxiously stalking Aaron) by the end of the day. Matt had called a short meeting and decided to create a new, temporary show, calling it “RT Zoo Life”.

By the next morning, they’d hit the national news.

 


	8. The Cat that Got the Cream

Michael blinked into the late morning light, stretching lazily at the warm feeling of it against his skin. And fur. Because he had fucking _fur_ now. That was a thing.

It’d been bugging the hell out of him for a full day now as it grew in uncomfortably where he usually didn’t have significant amounts of hair. It was worse in the beginning when it was short and stubbly and painfully itchy, and was only marginally better as it got longer and softer, though the sharp pricking sensation as it grew unnaturally fast continued to bother the hell out of him.

Someone giggled to his left and he titled his head, instantly scowling at the glinting black lens looking back at him.

“Shit Linds, let me wake the fuck up first.” He hissed at the camera.

“I can’t help it. I always wanted a cat, and I freaking _married_ one!” She giggled, and Michael frowned. Suddenly, her words sunk all the way through his suddenly well rested mind, and he realized he didn’t actually feel like shit anymore. It’d been a never ending suck-fest of pain and irritation and itching for two straight days, and all of a sudden it’d just _stopped._ He felt fine.

He flipped over and would’ve fallen off the bed in a confused pile if his feet hadn’t somehow gotten underneath him before he could hit the ground. He brushed it off, making for the bathroom immediately and clinging to the sink as he stared at the mirror.

First of all—he had _ears._ Cat ears. He already knew his old ears had stopped working since he’d spent an hour about a day ago pretty damn deaf when _neither_ sets of ears had worked, but it sort of turned out in his favor that he’d been blissfully relieved of the super-sensitivity that’d been torturing him since the whole process started, even if only temporarily. He hadn’t been able to stand until now though, so he hadn’t gotten to see them beyond feeling them for himself in his moments of lucidity. Now he saw they were sort of the same color as his hair if only a few shades darker, speckled with darker streaks of black, complete with ink-dipped tips and longer hairs at the pointed ends. He reached up and touched them, and found they weren’t itchy anymore, just soft like silk. His hair too, was way softer than he remembered it being.

He examined his teeth, which he already knew had changed when they’d started dropping out (much to his initial panic) and painfully growing back in at an enormously, uncomfortably fast rate. His canines were sharp as heck, but all his other teeth looked just like a cat’s too—pointed and jagged. Not one single molar had survived, and he wondered how the hell he was supposed to eat like this. He was fairly certain he’d needed those to chew stuff.

The things that surprised him the most were his eyes and the markings on his face. His eyes had always been wide and a defined flat brown, but now there were streaks of yellow towards his pupils—which had gone an alarming almond shape like they couldn’t decided if they’d wanted to be round like a human’s or slits like a cat’s. They were also reflective, glinting sharply in the light above the mirror and going a shining white opaque when he turned his head just right. His freckles had morphed too it seemed, to create symmetrical lines and patterns across his cheeks in markings—not just their original reddish brown color either, but also interspersed with new colors of lighter tans and darker browns, to match his ears. They trailed off into thin fur of the same color markings that grew gradually thicker by the edge of his cheeks and grew thickly over where his old ears were until you couldn’t even see them anymore (not that he was using them anyway) making the shape of his head seem very feline in nature. He quickly discovered it was just as soft as the rest of it, and then blinked a little wildly when he felt what he had no other name for but _whiskers._

They were so blonde they were white, and he couldn’t even see them unless he leaned in really close to the mirror and concentrated, but they were definitely there. And they were sensitive as hell apparently, since touching them made his nose twitch on instinct and sent flares of sensation over his entire face and neck. He quickly dropped his hand, not wanting Lindsay to see that just yet, knowing full well she was going to take full advantage of it immediately.

And speaking of his wife, he turned and found she was still recording him.

“This is all your fault.” He said loudly, almost yelling but obviously still joking to her, though very few ever understood his line between joking and real anger.

“Mine!?” She cried in ‘alarm’.

He marched out of the bathroom and crossed his arms over his chest, belatedly realizing the same freckled patterns and thin fur was coating his arms now too. “You were _wishing_ for this, I fucking know it. You and your damn _cat_ obsession.” He ranted, cracking a small smile at the end that had her laughing heartily.

“Ok, maybe I thought about it, but come on! It’s _adorable!_ And I thought you couldn’t get any cuter!” She giggled. He hissed lowly in objection to that, feeling his new ears flatten back against his head in displeasure. It only made her laugh harder. She got up a bit clumsily, still holding the camera in her hand, before grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the room towards the kitchen. “While you were passed out, Burnie called with some updates about what sort of things the new hybrids of the world are doing about their new dietary issues, and he had a suggestion for you.”

“Food,” Michael groaned, realizing just how hungry he was. He hadn’t eaten in quite a while now, not to mention the times he’d thrown up which had rendered anything he _had_ eaten useless. He let Lindsay push him into a stool at the counter and came around to film his reaction as she slid a plate of what looked like the perfect breakfast to him—or had been, until today. Eggs and toast had been right up his alley, but something about it made his stomach flip now.

He blinked slowly, unable to process why this looked so damn unappealing. He glanced up at his wife, silently begging for an answer to his unspoken question, and titled his head in confusion at her wicked grin. She took the plate away again and set a glass of what looked to be milk in front of him.

He scowled. “Linds, I’m lactose intolerant, and I _just_ got over this damn change, I don’t feel like puking my guts out today too.” He complained. At the same time, there was sickly sweet scent in his nose that brushed against his whiskers and sent waves of those electric feelings straight to his stomach and his mouth, making him drool instinctively. 

 She smiled knowingly. “Just try it, hon,” She urged, and he gave a longsuffering sigh before taking the glass. He’d handled milk before, even if his stomach didn’t agree with him mostly.

Thoughts of his future stomach ache flew right out the window as the white liquid hit his tongue though, and he felt warm all over. His stomach growled audibly and before he knew it he’d drained the glass. “Jesus Christ, the fuck is this?!”He cried out when he realized just _how_ much he liked this damn drink, and his wife let out a peal of triumphant laughter.

“It’s pure cream,” She explained, and Michael’s eyes went wide as he licked his lips, savoring the sweet, smooth taste that seemed to fill every part of him. “Feline hybrids are showing to be big fans of the stuff, and apparently you’re no different babe. I believe that expression is the definition of a ‘ _cat that got the cream’,_ and it’s my new screensaver.”

Michael barely even heard her, he was padding over to the fridge in search of more of the stuff, a long reddish tail flicking happily behind him.

 


	9. Scratches

Michael’s morning had been emailed, edited, and posted online before he managed to get his fill of cream, dressed, and back to work with a practically skipping Lindsay by his side as she continually petted his ears and ran her fingers over the soft new fur on the side of his face. It didn’t take her long to discover the whiskers with all the touching, but he’d gotten her to promise to keep those on the down low—especially from Gavin and Ray, who would most definitely form a prank immediately after learning about them. She’d only promised to keep it quiet until all of them at the company had changed, but once the chaos was over she was going to plan a prank herself, much to his displeasure.

Getting dressed presented some new challenges: mainly his tail and his ears. Both did not cooperate with his normal clothes, and they’d spent quite some time finding the right placement to cut a hole in his pants for his tail, and even longer cutting _exactly_ the right points for his ears to poke through one of his favorite beanies. He could’ve worn the hat over his ears, but then he couldn’t hear a damn thing, not even with the surprisingly useful sensitive hearing he had now (meaning he was fully aware when Lindsay was sneaking up on him to try and get him to jump, which made her pout a lot) so he compensated.

After he’d composed himself, Lindsay had taken about a thousand pictures, obsessing over his new feline-ness, and he let her with a resigned acceptance of her excitement and another promise not to share those with _anyone._ He didn’t actually get her to agree to those conditions though, she’d only just smiled.

It was practically lunch by the time they got there, and they caused quite a stir.

Mainly by the several vans sitting out front.

Michael felt the hair on every inch of his body stand up in alarm and discomfort as four people with microphones and cameras tried to stop his car from entering the parking lot and ask him a question (combined with Lindsay’s constant recording, which put him a little on edge), but he just hissed at them—showing as much of his new, deadly looking fangs as he could—and it got two of them to back off at least. Luckily they didn’t follow him once he crossed the gate to the parking lot, and it didn’t take him long to figure out why.

Burnie’s horns were bigger than the last time Michael had seen him, and he did _not_ look happy. He seemed a lot broader too, really taking in those bison genes he’d spontaneously developed as he stared down the reporters until they stopped trying to shout questions at him. Michael was surprisingly amused by this (considering what a happy-go-lucky guy he knew Burnie to be normally, and now getting to see him act like some frightening bouncer) and just grinned slyly again at his wife before he slipped out of his car.

Burnie caught sight of him and melted into a broad, excited smile.

“Here kitty, kitty!” He called, and Michael hissed at him, swatting his shoulder in what was supposed to be a bro punch but definitely came out to be a very cat-like swat, much to his embarrassment. Burnie just bellowed a laugh and then took him in fully—from the ears to his markings to his swishing tail. “Well hello kitty.” He grinned, and Michael rolled his eyes.

“And _bye,_ son,” He shot back, pushing past him towards the front door.

“It’s only been three days and that already _really_ fucking old,” Burnie commented lightly as he fell into step beside him. Lindsay pushed forward with her video phone and ran ahead to the Achievement Hinter office, yelling into it to announce her husband’s “beautiful new tail” as everyone heard her yell. There was a lot of rustling as he heard his friends and coworkers get up to see. Others too, were poking their heads out of their hiding holes at Lindsay’s racket to see the second new hybrid in the office.

And speaking of the eyes Michael felt all over his skin, he turned to the bison beside him. “What’s with the reporters man? Did you actually put that stupid political joke in RvB and now the city’s pissed, or what?”

“Actually it’s _you_ man,” He replied happily, watching with satisfaction as Michael’s snark was replaced with shock. “Well, not _just_ you, but _mainly_ you at the moment. That video of you going feral and attacking Gavin went viral overnight and it’s hit the news across the country apparently. It seems we’re the only ones not _completely_ freaked by all these changes and taking a more humorous, realistic side to this stuff and everyone just _loves_ it, even if they’ve no fucking clue what Rooster Teeth is. I saw FOX this morning, they called us a ‘ _corporate office’_ for god’s sake, so I’m pretty sure they don’t have a single idea what we do, only that the world loves to watch us turn into animals. It’s all the news is talking about, and those assholes keep trying to corner us, but Matt’s kicked them out. We’ll post our own content, thankyouverymuch.”

“Oh,” He said weakly, trying to take that in. “Wait, watch _us_ turn into animals?”

“Kerry, Aaron, Blaine, and Caleb went home yesterday with some weird symptoms. We got it all on video too, which are all going viral as well, if you wanna see for yourself.” He offered in a slightly more subdued voice.

“I think I’m gonna have to,” He mused, blinking a little when he was suddenly crushed by two lanky arms.

“Micool!” Gavin screeched, and his voice went _straight_ through Michael’s newly sensitive ears. He yelped loudly and thrashed a bit instinctively, sharp nails suddenly dug straight into his best friend’s arm. Gavin squeaked loudly, but had learned his lesson last time and knew not to thrash around and make it worse—instead he released the cat hybrid and shrunk slightly, making a small apologetic whimper sound.

“Oh god Gavers, please don’t do that, my ears man,” Michael hissed, feeling slightly guilty as he tried to relax and felt his nails sort of… slink back (?). He pried himself from Gavin and the Brit clamped a hand over his newly bleeding arm, but other than that just straightened up and grinned at his friend like that hadn’t just happened.

“But Michael! You’re a cat!” He cried excitedly, oblivious to Jack tugging at his hand to examine the new wounds.

He rolled his eyes. “No shit man. My wife’s dream has finally come true.” He sighed, earning himself several chuckles as everyone else came a bit closer.

“Glad to see you’re not dead man,” Geoff grinned, leaning forward and pulling him in a short hug. “And hey, cat ears kinda suit you. You’ve even adapted the beanie.”

“Well yeah, can’t live without the damn beanie. And thanks,” He said, only slightly sardonically.

“The fuck did you do to him dude?” Jack blinked, pealing Gavin’s t-shirt sleeve back and quickly put it back down when a rivulet a blood curled down to the crook of the Brit’s elbow. Michael grimaced apologetically, lifting his hand and concentrating a bit.

Underneath his normal nails, were _other_ nails that were retractable, and infinitely sharper than a human’s, curved into deadly points. His left hand, once the nails were revealed, looked to be painted ruby red in his best friend’s blood.

“Whoops.” He chuckled nervously, giving a hesitant smile as he rocked back on his heels and pressed his ears back at them in a silent plea for them not to get mad.

The only ones who looked like they might say something were Jack, Geoff, and Burnie, but all of them were cut off when Gavin burst out in a delighted cry and forgot entirely about Jack tending to his arm as he grabbed Michael’s hand to look at the nails closer.

“ _Dude._ We’ve got to slo-mo that. Macro lens too.” He said, dead serious, and Michael’s ears stood straight up.

“ _Yes.”_ He agreed immediately, eyes going wide. Which, Lindsay had told him was a bit more defined for him now, since his pupils were so screwed up and now fluctuated with his emotions.

“First, you need to stop bleeding.” Jack scolded them as he dragged Gavin back to the kitchen area where they kept a med kit. Michael let him go for a moment, others crowing around and poking at his ears curiously.

It was surprisingly easy to be a cat, he decided. The hissing and ear tilting and all that crap was like a second language he’d never realized he’d understood perfectly until now. And it got easier as they asked questions about what his change had been like, what had happened to his old ears, what was with the cream thing, so on and so forth. Lindsay’s camera followed him closely throughout it all from behind a couple of people, and Michael sort of got a sense that he wasn’t just talking to his friends here, if what Burnie had said about these transformation videos going viral was true. The questions made him think about who/what he was now, and saying it aloud in a lot of ways made it a bit more comfortable to be in his skin.

And he was surrounded by his friends, who were merely interested and not flipping their shit, which boosted his confidence ten-fold, and made his tail swish happily behind him at all the positive attention.

He was a cat. He thought maybe he was ok with this.

“But seriously, no eggs?” Chris was looking thoroughly concerned about this.

Michael flashed him a fanged grin. “Dude, fuck eggs—that cream was fucking _amazing._ I had like half a gallon more after that video ended, and I regret nothing.” He declared proudly.

Burnie chuckled a bit. “Glad my research paid off. You know, they’re also saying raw fish is going over great with feline hybrids too. Tuna, salmon, etc…” Michael lifted his eyebrows and considered that, and then shrugged as if he couldn’t deny it sounded good, earning a few more laughs.

“Looks like it’s gonna be sushi for lunch today,” Geoff chuckled.

“What’s the tail like?” Barbara asked the next question eagerly.

Michael looked to his side where the mentioned tail was swishing in the air, and paused a little as if it knew he was looking at it. He narrowed his eyes a little. “Has a fucking mind of its own, but it’s pretty unobtrusive. It’s like… I dunno, having an extra _toe_ or something; not really something I pay much mind to. Except when my dumbass wife freakin’ _steps on it!”_ He half shouted the last part.

“I said I was sorry!” She yelled back.

“ _Not_ forgiven!”

“You always wanted a cat, Linds. Did you wish _really_ hard or something?” Kara teased to the red head to her left, and Lindsay cackled.

“I swear I had nothing to do with this—fate must just love me!” She cheered, and looked at her husband. “But wait, I’ve gotta know, are we still planning on getting a real cat after all of this?”

Everyone had to muffle their laughter at the stricken look that passed over Michael’s face at that idea.

“I have no idea how I feel about that,” He admitted, looking uneasy.

Burnie stepped forward and clapped his back in rough comfort with a devilish grin on his face—the same one he had when he knew he was about to cause chaos. “You know, considering what a testy asshole you are normally, it’s probably safe to say you’d probably be one of the more _territorial_ felines, so getting a _rival-_ ”

“Oh such up, asshole,” Michael hissed at him, his cheeks blushing slightly red. “I’m still human! Just… also a cat.” He tacked on lamely, his ears pressing back and his tail swishing sharply in agitation. “And _as_ a cat, I’m feeling the strong urge to claw your eyes out right now if you don’t back off,” He snapped jokingly.

Burnie waved a hand dismissively. “You were _always_ like that—you just have the claws to do it now!” He said brightly, and Michael gave him a dry smile in return.

He felt his eyes narrow into slits as an idea struck him, and Burnie’s grin instantly morphed into a look of suspicion.

“You know, Burns,” Michael started to grin, showing off every single pointed tooth in his mouth as he did so. “One thing I’ve learned through all this crap concerning my new fucking awesome claws, is that I _really_ like to _scratch._ And _my_ , what interesting horns you have…” He was full on purring, the sound coming from his chest as a look of evil delight flashed in his yellow-brown eyes.

“Aw _fuck_ no,” Burnie was out of there in an instant, “I’ll buy you a scratch post or something!” He shouted from down the hall as he made his hasty exit.

“But _why!?_ You have two!” Michael shouted in mocking complaint, giving chase, sprinting and curling around the crowd that’d clustered about the front hall to see the new Michael Jones with their own eyes. The cat hybrid definitely had the reflexes of his animal side as Chris almost tripped over himself to get out of the way and Michael just went damn near _over_ him, using the wall to give a small boost to his jump and his smooth motions not even stumbling a step as he went after the bison in his narrowed sights.

And then he was gone, an reddish brown tail flicking around a corner, and a couple seconds later they heard Burnie shouting curses, causing a lot of smiles to break out, followed by a renewed speculating chatter. This had only just begun, after all.


	10. Bleats and Barks

Gavin was sitting on Geoff’s couch, watching the older man and Griffon bicker about the game they were about to play—since they’d decided to play, but hadn’t quite gotten on the same page as to _what_ just yet—when he got the call from Dan. It wasn’t unusual for Dan to not call while on tour for days at a time, since he was obviously busy and not always in the position to make a call to shoot the breeze for nothing, often resorting to email to just keep in general contact. Calls meant he had something to say, or they hadn’t talked for real in a couple weeks.

And since Gavin had talked to him just last week, since they’d been more than a little freaked about this whole De-Evolution thing, it meant there was news.

His heart jammed into his throat and he answered it immediately, “B?”

“ _Gav, you’re not gonna believe this. I’m a bloody **dog.** ” _

“What!?” Gavin yelped in alarm. “That fast? I mean, when did you-?”

“ _About three days ago. The entire camp started going down in waves a couple weeks ago and I got sick this last one. Sorry I didn’t give a heads up, they sort of just lock us in one of the medical tents until it’s over. I just got out, and one of the docs told me I was a German Sheppard now. Not sure how I feel ‘bout it, but I can smell **everything** in a ten mile radius; it’s pretty bloody ridiculous.” _

Gavin realized his mouth was open, and slowly closed it. “You’ve got to send me a pic.”

“ _I’ll tweet it, soon as I’m able.”_ He laughed.

“So…does this mean you’ll be wanting a bone for Christmas? Maybe some kibble?”

“ _Shut it, you prick.”_ He snorted, then paused. “ _But, weird as it is, a bone does sound pretty nice right now. Though, I eat everything, always have. Don’t think being a dog has changed that much.”_

“No, actually it explains a lot about your eating habits,” Gavin rolled his eyes. He lit up when an idea struck. “Hey, are they gonna train you as a bomb dog now?”

The line was silent for a long moment.

“ _B, that’s an AWESOME idea! God I’d freakin’ love that! I’d get to smell all the stuff and track things through the cities and bite people for an actual reason-!”_

“Woah, bite people!?”

“ _Oh, ah yeah. You should see my teeth man, freakin’ mental. Accidentally bit one of the doctors while I was fever-blind, or so they said. Didn’t get in trouble though, apparently she’d already been stabbed by three antlers and bit by a tiger earlier that day, so I was the least of her worries.”_

“You _bit_ her?! And hey—do you know the tiger?”

“ _Nah B. He’s still in there I think, anyway. And biting is surprisingly instinctual I’ve discovered—and here I thought I grew out of that when I was six.”_

“Well, hearing you get all excited about sniffing bombs would make anyone think you’re a _puppy_ instead of a bloody dog, so…”

 _“Aw shut it.”_  He let out a loud bark of laughter that—yep, really sounded like a bark. “ _Hey Gav, I’ve still got family to call. I’ll skype later, right?”_

“Sure thing; enjoy the new tail and stuff. Don’t sniff anyone’s butt without permission, mind your manners.”

“ _You prick. Luv ya, B.”_

“Luv ya too, mutt!”

_“Shut it!”_

Gavin hung up, feeling like a giant weight had just been lifted off his shoulders, the same way he’d felt when Michael had walked into work this morning completely fine despite his new ears and tail. He knew, somewhere in the back of his head, that this change wasn’t as terrifying as everyone seemed to think that it was, but it was like he couldn’t make himself not worry until everyone he cared about was through it and officially ok. Michael and Dan, two of his best friends, were ok as a cat and dog respectively. His parents were ok now, having turned into some sort of weasel and a prairie dog a week or so ago, and they were already perfectly content and over the whole thing like the rest of the UK. That just left his friends at Rooster Teeth, in particular the Ramseys.

Who had barely noticed he’d been on the phone, their argument getting pretty intense. Which was weird, because they were probably the two most kicked back people he knew. He frowned a little, watching them duke it out, until Geoff’s foot started irritating him. The older man was standing by the telly with the game he was advocating in his hand, but his foot kept scuffing the ground repeatedly, making a persistent scratching noise. And he didn’t seem to realize he was doing it, nor the way his head kept cocking to the side as if he were butting the air to get rid of a bug or something.

It was weird.

And then Gavin figured it out, and he nearly jumped in his seat with the force of the realization hitting him.

He glanced at Griffon in almost panic to where she was sitting in the recliner across from him, but she was getting into the argument too. She was smiling playfully though as she leaned over the chair armrest to make some sharp retort, not like Geoff, who seemed honestly riled.

And her nails were flexing against the arm of the squishy chair, creating ribbons of fabric and clouds of stuffing to pour out beneath her touch.

 _Bloody hell,_ Gavin rolled his eyes. Of course it’d be their luck they both went at the same time.

He knew they were probably going to have to go get Millie to her grandmother’s house for the next couple days, and Gavin was going to need to call Michael for a ride to the office or something, but first thing’s first. He took the phone he’d just hung up and turned on his camera, and began filming.

“That is the _lamest_ excuse ever,”

“Well it’s better than yours,”

“Excuse me, but video games are my _job_ , you’d think I know what I was talking about!”

“One would think that, wouldn’t they?”

Geoff gave a huff through his nose—the same way Burnie now did as just a common habit. “Ok then, give me _one_ _good_ reason a first-person shooter is boring, and _not_ just because I’ve been playing them all week.”

“I want to play _with_ you, not against you! I’m not in the mood to fight,” Griffon teased, a wide smile on her lips.

Geoff’s foot hit the ground again. “Then what do you call this!?”

“Banter.”

“Argh!”

“What’s wrong with you, you never take my bait,” She hummed, seemingly thoroughly amused by his mounting frustration.

“I don’t know, what’s wrong with _you?_ Oh wait, I already know that answer, you’re a sadist.”

A hiss of objection escaped her lips, and the couple froze as one, staring at each other in shocked surprise at the sound.

“Did you-?”

“I think so.”

“Fucking hell,”

“Is that a cat noise? Sounds like a cat noise, right?”

“I dunno, how many animals hiss?”

“And how many stamp their feet and huff?” Gavin chimed in at the point, and the couple looked at him in alarm as if they’d entirely forgotten he was there. “What the bloody hell are you doing with your head, Geoffrey?” He pointed out when they clearly didn’t realize what he was talking about.

Geoff froze in the middle of doing one of those weird ducking motions his with head, going stiff, and all at once they seemed to realize how odd they’d _both_ been acting.

“Shit.” He deadpanned. And then he realized Gavin was filming him and rolled his eyes.

“Now this isn’t the end of the world, but I’m thinking you’re a cow.” The Brit said carefully in a mocking way.

“I don’t want to be a cow, Ryan will probably put me in a hole!” Geoff complained jokingly. “Not to mention I’d be like _Burnie—_ ugh!”

“Burnie’s a bison, not a cow.” Griffon pointed out.

“Same fucking difference, the bovine prick.” Geoff said simply crossing his arms over his chest indignantly and his foot stomping again without him seeming to realize it. Griffon watched the motion carefully and then titled her head at her husband curiously—not unlike the way Michael now watched people, with a wide-eyed, careful observation before he lashed out or spoke. Gavin could clearly picture an invisible tail behind her, flicking curiously as the situation.

“A lot of people are turning bovine though, it’s one of the higher rates of De-Evolution out there,” Griffon reminded him. “It’s something like a seventeen percent chance of being something cow-related, so chances are…” She trailed off teasingly as her husband sulked.

“Really?” Gavin perked up, not having known that. “Well what are cats?”

“Felines? Something like twelve percent I think.” She shrugged. “I’m not an expert, I was just reading that this morning. Those two in particular stuck out since the only two hybrids I know at this point are a cat and a bison.”

“Well then there’re slim chances we’d be a cat and a cow too.” Geoff tried to reason.

“Don’t be a baby,” She smirked.

“I’m not! I just don’t want to be a cow!”

“Think of how many of your fans are already cows at this point, how could you say that?”

“I’ve nothing _against_ cows, I’d just rather not be one!”

“That’s speciesist!”

“That— wait _what?”_

“Racist, but for speicies.” She explained with a knowing grin as he flushed again, and he went back to stomping on the floor and ducking his head with a renewed vigor. It seemed to be brought out more drastically by agitation.

“I’m not racist! Or speciesist!”

“You _are_ from Alabama.”

“Not _that_ part of Alabama!”

“Oh, so now you’re regionalist?”

“Shut up!”

“Make me!”

He smirked/glared as his wife before rising to the challenge and launching himself at her, head first. She gave a yelp of surprise that he’d actually gone for it and twisted out of the way, suddenly perched precariously on the back of the recliner while Geoff collapsed in a pile on its seat, having obviously missed. They stared at each other for a split second and then exploded in fits of laughter—it was all just too ridiculous. 

“And _that_ is why we can’t play a first person shooter! If you can’t even get _me_ and I was only three feet from your face!” Griffon laughed at him, seeming to get comfortable and settle down in her precarious position on top of the recliner head rest.

“That’s in real life, I’m _way_ more competent in the virtual world,” Geoff pouted up at her playfully.

“Oh don’t I know it.”

“Bah!” He shouted, tossing his hands up in defeat, but the sound wasn’t… really like a yell. It was more like… a _bleat._

Geoff didn’t seem to think anything of this, but Griffon did. Her eyebrows arched high as she glanced at the Gavin, and subsequently the camera in his hands. “Maybe we should play goat simulator instead.” She suggested lightly.

And that was when Gavin’s filming went to crap because he was laughing too hard.


	11. Let's Talk

The next morning was spent watching the newly edited videos that Miles and JJ had gotten in early to edit and post. There was Geoff and Griffon’s “Happy Zoo Hour”, Kara sitting in a tree and refusing to come down (instead, throwing bits of bark and acorns at those filming her with alarming accuracy), and Kdin at the park in the middle of the night cackling up a storm as he spun rapidly on top of a playground jungle-gum, his eyes already eerily reflective in the camera’s light. None of them had come in, but had emailed their footage as soon as they had it.

Gavin had left the Ramsey’s to their own devices since both of them had looked like crap that morning, downing coffee and managing to pretend everything was normal for the ten minutes he was there, but he was almost certain it hadn’t lasted like that long.  

By lunch there were two more videos to post, and the first was one of Gavin’s favorites. It consisted of nearly three straight minutes of Matt Hullum staring straight at a camera with a professional deadpan as he slowly ate what appeared to be grass or maybe hay, and whoever was filming—which sounded a lot like Barbara—trying her hardest not to break up into laughter and not quite managing it.

The other was a double, when someone had discovered that the RT Zoo editor himself was strangely distracted by shinny things. Brandon was dangling various sparkly objects in front of Miles and laughing his ass off when the guy would try and desperately finish his sentences and get sidetracked mid-way by the glitter, much like with Michael and the laser pointer. That was all pretty funny, but it got twice as amusing halfway through when Brandon dropped a little tittering contraption, like a sparking wind-up toy a fan had sent them, on the desk behind him to keep Miles from lunging at it. The desk happened to be where Monty was sitting to check up on something, and he’d been steadily working and paying them no mind—until the toy had come into his peripheral. One hand had shot out and pinned it automatically, and he swatted it across the room before they could blink.

He went back to working like nothing strange had happened, and Miles and Brandon had shared a look before breaking down in renewed laughter.

Halfway through the afternoon Miles and the others filmed that morning went home feeling sick (with the exception of Monty, but Burnie assured them he would be dragging the animator home when he left for the day whether he agreed to it or not) and Achievement Hunter had picked up some of the slack in editing the RT Zoo videos since they were the most caught up on their work out of everyone in the office (for once). Besides, they were down one member who happened to be their boss, so their options on what they could film was at a minimum.

They ended up doing a Let’s Play though, because for some reason after Monty’s symptoms, it seemed to stop. Gavin had mentioned how Dan said his camp had gone in ‘waves’, and they all simply assumed the first wave was over, and the second was on its way. Or perhaps the third wave, since Michael seemed to have had a cycle all to his own.

“A _dog,_ ” The cat hybrid had shaken his head jokingly. “And here I thought Dan was _cool.”_ He cried dramatically, tail flicking out behind him as if in a theatrical wave, and they chuckled ironically as they went about their play.  

“A German Sheppard too, the doc told him.” Gav continued happily, trying to avoid dying for the fifth time since they’d started recording. “I said he should be a bomb dog, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him that excited about anything before. He blabbered on about all the things he’d get to _sniff_ and such, he was like a little kid.”

“I’m telling you, it’s weird at first but it’s freaking _easy_ as fuck to be an animal.” Michael said firmly, “Like, I don’t give a shit anymore every time I do something human-me wouldn’t have done, it’s just so fucking instinctual now that I can’t be bothered with being bothered.” 

“Eloquent,” Jack chuckled.

“Hey, how did Dan’s doctor know he was a German Sheppard specifically? Can they really tell that when he’s still mostly human?” Ryan tossed out there, and Gavin shrugged.

“I didn’t ask. I assume you could ask a vet or something what sort of animal you are and they’d figure it out.”

“We should get a vet to come into the office once everyone’s changed, just so we all know.” Michael lit up with his idea.

“I think Burnie might go for that. I happen to know one, too.” Ryan smirked.

“Oh yeah, you _married_ one!” Gavin connected, and they got distracted when Gavin accidentally blew them up in the game.

“I wonder what Geoff and Griff are gonna be.” Ray tossed out there once they calmed down a little bit and fell into a lull again.

“Griffon’s obviously a sort of cat.” Michael said immediately, sounding very happy about this.

“I know that, but I mean _specifically._ Like, she gonna be a house cat too or what? There are a _lot_ of cats out there.” He countered, and they shrugged a bit.

Jack hummed. “And Geoff was doing the same quirks Burnie does now, all except for the head thing. Plus the bleating is a goat thing, but I don’t know…”

“Goats aren’t aggressive like he was being.” Ryan pointed out. “If anything that more a sheep thing, right?”

“Are sheep that aggressive?”

“I dunno, I think so. They’re like pack animals, but they can get pretty worked up when cornered I think. I don’t know much about them.” Ryan admitted.

Ray suddenly burst out laughing at seemingly nothing, much to their confusion. Upon catching their looks, he cocked an eyebrow at them. “Aren’t male sheep called _rams?”_

“What?” Gavin frowned while everyone else tensed up.

Michael turned and grinned at him with every inch of his fanged teeth. “Geoff _Ramsey,_ boi.”

And as soon as he figured it out, they all exploded into barely contained hysterics.


	12. Spots

Most of those who were hit in the first wave got over it sometime on the weekend, and all of them were ready to get back to work by Monday. When he’d swung by Friday night to grab some of his things, Gavin had offered to stay at the Ramsey’s should they need help over the ordeal, but got another scratch on his arm and chased out of the house by an enraged and in-pain Geoff for his efforts (and subsequent annoyance, apparently). He didn’t mind though, he was still cracking up about how he’d closed the front door in Geoff’s face and the older man had run head-first into it, accompanied by a pissed-off bleat of annoyance for the obstacle.

He was most definitely a ram. Gavin just hadn’t realized how aggressive rams were, he always figured sheep were just… you know, sheep. Still, he wasn’t best friends with Michael “Rage Quit” Jones for nothing, so he found it more funny that anything. 

Instead he crashed at Michael’s place for the couple days, thoroughly enjoying himself when Lindsay had “accidentally” revealed that the red head had whiskers. He also managed to film his new-favorite video of the normally loud New Jersian actually _purring_ when he’d fallen asleep halfway during a movie they’d been watching, his wife absently carding her fingers through his hair like she had at the office before he’d changed. The Jones’ fridge was half filled with cartons of cream now, white boxes of raw fish and cans of tuna on ice next to their ice cream. There were scratches in random places on their walls, on their furniture. There were a lot more blankets and sunlight in their living room than there used to be. They had two sparkly new controllers since Michael’s new claws had actually ripped through his old one and they expected a repeat before long.

Gavin enjoyed figuring out what had changed since his boi had become a cat, and was pleasantly surprised that there wasn’t much. The biggest in his mind was that Michael now had a thing for Baileys instead of beer, or other creamy-like mixers, but he’d made sure to stock up on common bevs for his visitors so that Gavin wasn’t really affected during their bev time. They even went swimming, since it was still one of Gavin’s favorite ways to drink a bev on a lazy weekend and Michael didn’t actually seem averse to water, no more than he used to be when accompanied by his favorite Brit (who liked to dunk people when they weren’t paying attention). They’d spent a nice Saturday that way, Michael shaking water droplets from his wet fur and using his claws to slice through water quickly to tackle his wife and best friend when they ganged up on him.

He and Lindsay had actually joined forces in thoroughly documenting the feline without his knowledge when he’d curled up in the late afternoon sun on one of the pool recliners to dry his fur, stretching in a way _quite_ reminiscent of his animal side. Lindsay still couldn’t get over how adorable it was and Gavin just because he knew it’d spark a fight later when Michael found out and wanted the pictures deleted.

Sunday night Burnie was throwing a barbeque for the office, both for the reason of celebrating the fast approach of summer and to get a good look at who had changed in the second wave. Matt and Gus had seconded that email invitation, claiming that everyone who wanted to gawk at the new hybrids could do so at the party instead of at work tomorrow since they had a lot to crap to do and not enough hours in the day to do it—as per usual and even slightly worse since so many people had been out “sick” and it was expected that a lot more would be out of commission in the coming weeks too.

Gavin was still searching for his shoes to go to the party when the Ramseys finally group texted them all back, saying they just got over their change and felt well enough to show up at the BBQ. Gavin and Michael had just exchanged wildly excited grins and then ran for the car with a laughing Lindsay hurriedly locking up after them. As they piled in the car and took off, they chattered anxiously about what sort of animals their friends and coworkers might have changed into judging by the clues they had thus far.

“If he doesn’t have horns, I’m gonna be disappointed.” Gavin decided, almost bouncing in his seat, referencing his roommate and boss distractedly.

“Oh I’m just excited to see Kerry and Caleb! Caleb was just so much fun to play with, and on top of the whole ultimate Frisbee thing, I wonder just how far he’s gonna go,” Lindsay grinned evilly. “I hope he catches the disks in his mouth.” She decided with a savage smile.

“I forgot about Kerry,” Michael mused, his voice curling into a thoughtful, almost sinister purr. “If he _is_ a mouse…”

“Don’t you _dare_ frighten him Michael Jones!” Lindsay half shouted at her husband, sounding actually serious despite her also-amused smile. “You were crabby as hell while getting used to being a cat and he’s probably not much better so soon after his change. He was nervous enough about it before, without having to deal with a _predator_ on his ass.”

Her husband had the decency to look slightly abashed at the reprimand. “I wouldn’t really hurt him!” He defended himself.

“Like you wouldn’t hurt Gavin?” She shot back with a lifted eyebrow. Michael’s ears flicked a bit—she had known he still felt slightly bad about sinking his claws into the Brit almost the second he got back to work, even if Gavin wasn’t fazed at all by it.

But it was a good point: he the human would _never_ hurt one of his friends intentionally enough to make them bleed or to actually frighten them. However, the human him seemed to have a lot less say in his actions than he used to, considering he’d already made Gavin bleed twice in the past couple days, and he’d chased the Brit almost out of the office _before_ he was even a full cat. He’d seen the video: no matter how much Gavin had joked and flailed theatrically, there had definitely been moments he’d actually been visibly afraid of his best friend and the feral way he’d been acting. Gavin was pretty good at keeping all the mushy feelings and stuff he had under wraps—or just ignoring he had them in the first place, the oblivious bastard— but Michael knew him well enough to notice the actual fear in his eyes, even if it was just small flashes in the heat of the chase that were quickly stamped out by the logic that his best friend wouldn’t _actually_ hurt him.

But reminder of the incident had the desired effect, and Michael purposefully withdrew his claws firmly as their car turned onto Burnie’s street. Lindsay nodded, seeming satisfied with that while Gavin leaned in-between them from the back seat, unaware or perhaps just missing the importance of that brief exchange.

“Do you reckon you’ll actually want to chase him and stuff? Like a proper mouse and cat?” he tossed out there curiously, and it only further cemented the quickly growing realization in Michael’s mind that he had to keep his cat side firmly under lock and key for this party. And perhaps after it too.

“I don’t know, not every cat chases mice.” Lindsay pointed out. “Just like not every cat hates water—as evidenced by our swimmy time.” She reminded them.

“I might make a joke, but I don’t think I _actually_ want to chase him,” Michael said clearly, more to decide that aloud for himself than anything. “I mean, he’s not _you_ Gav, I don’t actually want to scare him,” He smiled slyly, laughing a little at the indignant squawk that earned him.

“Bloody _hell,”_ Gavin suddenly broke off his complaining as Lindsay pulled the car up to the curb, and was immediately out of the car and after whatever he’d seen.

“The fuck?” Michael blinked after him curiously, cracking the door open and getting one foot onto the ground before he suddenly realized this was a _huge_ mistake.

The air drifting into the car from across the lawn was filled with… mixed emotions.

He felt danger, but he also felt _hungry._ Not really hungry, but like… like he’d give _anything_ to sink his sharp teeth into something. He even started drooling, his front fangs itching like they did when they first started to grow in.

“Michael?”

He whipped his head around, and realized he’d been frozen. Lindsay had come around to his side of the car and opened it all the way for him, and he almost flinched at the assault of smells. It was too much—he didn’t have a name for a single one of them, but… some made him want to get right back in the car and drive away, others made him want to bolt for the house and hunt out whatever they were. Once he found them…

The sheer idea made his hackles rise and a hiss escape through his clenched teeth.

Lindsay was closer then, hands running over his face soothingly and he blinked rapidly, coming back to himself.

“Michael, do we need to go?” She frowned, and he actually had to pause and think about this.

“I…” How did he explain this? “I… don’t know, Linds. I can… like, _smell_ shit. I think…”

 _I think Kerry might be one of them._ He finished in his head in dawning horror. Kerry was one of his closest friends, he didn’t want to think what he was thinking about those scent trails and picture it being fucking _Kerry,_ he’d never hurt Kerry! He swears he wouldn’t! Not on his _life!_

But he could already taste putridly sweet copper on his tongue.

He almost gagged. He would’ve if his teeth didn’t ache in a pleasant way at the thought at the same time.

“Lindsay?” Another voice joined them, and Michael barely heard it through the blood pounding in his ears. Where the fuck did this adrenaline come from?! It was like his fight or flight was turned up ten levels, and _fight_ was _screaming_ at him from every corner of his brain. His claws twitched, his teeth ground together—

He almost jumped out of his skin as a not-so-quiet _roar_ barreled into his quickly increasing tunnel-vision at the house across the yard from him. His eyes went wide and he bunkered down, tensing and ready to launch himself at the threat as the roar morphed into a warning snarl that sent him over the edge, his nerves stringing tight like a wire.

When it came to this fight or flight decision, he wanted to get the _fuck_ out of here.

The scent was one of those that meant _danger._ It was slightly familiar, but also sickeningly sweeter, and heady enough to make him want to cough a little as it invaded his throat.

And then he saw her.

Griffon was one hell of a woman, and always had been with her tattoos and confident stance and just everything about her was badass and semi-scary. Especially if someone pissed her off and she got going. Now, she had teeth that matched Michael’s, but thicker and less sharp, like they were meant to crush and rip rather than slice. Her short blonde hair stuck up in a stylish way, complimenting the honey brown and golden ears poking up through her locks, round and straight up in alertness. She had fur where Michael did as well, down the sides of her head and fading thinner across her cheeks as it got closer to the center of her face, colored a golden brown naturally apart from her dyed top hair, and while she had no freckles to speak of, she _definitely_ had markings of her own. Spots really. 

Cheetah spots.

She snarled warningly again, and Michael stiffened a little to realize her hands were on either side of the car door frame, locking him in and exposing retractable nails of her own that looked blunter yet bigger than Michael’s. Her arms, while always having been rather lean from her work with a chainsaw, were also covered with lighter, thinner spotted fur, and _definitely_ more buff than they used to be. All around, she just looked meaner, leaner, and poised to strike—and since Cheetahs had a reputation, he was pretty damn sure she’d be a lot faster than he was. If she took a swat at him, it was going to fucking _hurt._

He felt his ears press back flat against his head and he shrunk in on himself a little, a small whine escaping his throat as a wordless plea _not_ to rip his throat out.

He cowered for a full second before Griffon stood up, and her snarl morphed into that familiar easy smile of hers.

“Better?” She smirked knowingly, and Michael blinked rapidly in shock.

Everything that had just been consuming him had faded into the background. The world was perfectly clear to him now, as he tried to absorb the very imminent threat in front of him, and if gave his brain clarity.

“W-what—how the _fuck-?”_

“Come on,” The Cheetah woman rolled her eyes, hooking her de-clawed hand around his wrist and pulling him from the car. “It helps to meet them,” She offered simply, her voice light but her expression clearly saying she was being dead serious.

“Wait… _them…”_

“You just need to familiarize yourself with their scents. Once you can associate them with people, with _friends,_ you won’t feel the need to kill or run from them. Like me, right?” She insisted, leaning in slightly closer than normal people did, and suddenly Michael figured it out.

She was close enough that he could recognize that horribly sweet, woody scent that made him want to cough—and yet also breath in deeper. That was Griffon’s scent.

A part of his brain told him that he’d never smelt that before, but another, more gut-wrenching part of him said that she had _always_ smelled this way—it was _her_. _All_ of her: the fierce woman she was, the kind friend—the _cheetah._  

And he realized that as soon as she’d smiled, he’d relaxed a fraction. Her scent still made him think along the lines of caution, of _fear_ even, but now he understood: this was Griffon. You _always_ feared Griffon a little, even before she was one of the world’s most deadly felines, but he knew she wouldn’t actually hurt him.

Unless he fucking deserved it, that was.

“… right.” He agreed slowly.

She smiled knowingly. “Don’t worry. Just know, if anything happens, I can totally kick your ass.”

He felt slightly more nervous than he normally did at the blatant threat. Fact was, the line between joking and not was a bit blurred—after all, he’d just been about to go serial-killer at a company party not two minutes ago, and that wasn’t like him _at all._ Griffon wouldn’t hurt him, but who the fuck could tell anymore; this wasn’t just the human side of them they were talking about anymore. 

He suddenly caught his wife’s expression over Griffon’s shoulder, and his ears went back.

“Hey, hey, it’s ok,” Lindsay was instantly by his side again, smoothing the fur down the side of his face and leaning in to give a small, gentle kiss on the tip of his nose, and it tickled his whiskers enough to send soothing sparks of electricity over his face and neck.

“I think I just went full cat-mode.” He muttered darkly. That was… that couldn’t happen again, to say the least.

But it’d been so _easy…_ to just forget his mind, to just give into being an animal… he hadn’t had a single inclination to stop, and it’d almost ended _terribly._

He couldn’t… this was a bad idea, he couldn’t-!

“Hey,” Griffon had a strong hand on his shoulder, digging in roughly and bringing him to focus on her once more. Her kind eyes smiled warmly, despite all the other danger signs Michael was picking up from her. “It gets easier, I swear.” She assured him gently. “And now you know, what it’s like—and it’s good to be prepared. I promise it won’t be as hard to snap out of it next time.”

“Next time,” he huffed, his face twisting angrily.

“Yes, next time.” Griffon seemed entirely undaunted and unworried about this fact, just soothingly stating a truth. “I had the same reaction you did, and Geoff’s probably gonna have the scars to prove it.” She admitted lightly, nodding to the couple’s shocked expressions with a small shrug. “It’s natural now, it’s just the way it is in the animal world.” Her smile quirked a bit sarcastically at that before settling. “But I knew it was probably going to happen when I showed up to this party too, and I was prepared. I was also prepared by waiting for you guys on the front porch, since I figured you haven’t had the opportunity to meet any other hybrids except for Burnie yet. And bisons aren’t exactly predator _or_ prey to house cats.” She explained.

Michael frowned, still not convinced he should trust himself with this.

But Lindsay seemed to have thought of something. “Oh god, _Burnie.”_ She turned and gave her husband’s confused look a slightly wild smile. “Come on babe, you’ve got to know that if you lose it again then Burnie will _definitely_ stop you. You’ve seen his horns and how built he is now…” Michael raised his eyebrows, acknowledging that point. Burnie was nothing if not protective of his people, and from their brief spat the other day when Michael had tried to use his horns as scratching posts, he knew damn well that the bison could hold his own in a fight, even if it turned out to be more than just a _play_ -fight.

“Not to mention _me,”_ Griffon reminded them, and her voice curled into a half-purr, half growl that instantly had Michael wanting to sink into the ground and beg her not to eat him alive.

That flare of fear was enough to convince him immediately. Griffon would _definitely_ kick his ass if he went rouge, and she would frighten some sense into him if he couldn’t get his head on straight.

That would have to be enough, because he wasn’t too interested in walking away from his friends and family just because he might lose his shit and start killing them all. It may be a legitimate fear now, but he’d never get through this if he couldn’t even face someone he loved like a brother like Kerry, or looked up to like Geoff. What the fuck would he do when Gavin and Ray changed, if they turned out to be prey? Or _Lindsay_ or his parents or some random, innocent old lady he’d encounter on a trip to the grocery store or something!?

This wasn’t going away. Right now, there were only a few hybrids in the area, and only some were prey like Kerry. But soon… soon _everyone_ would be some sort of animal, and the truth was that some of them were going to be prey that inspired all sort of dangerous instincts in his brain. And some were going to be predators above him, like Griffon. Some might be even scarier, or not as nice, and then… well, he couldn’t _start_ by running away right now when the problems were still small.

He’d never survive the coming weeks if he didn’t grow a pair and figure this out.


End file.
